Trash and ticks: It's all in an Earth Day

In honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Lilja team picked up 12 bags of trash yesterday around our office.

We worked nearly all the way around this little gem of a pond this year, realizing in the process it's fed by natural springs. The water was gin clear, as my Dad would have said. So it was satisfying work to beautify such a wonderful place (the Lilja office is in the left-hand corner).

Because we are close by a major highway, we find some unusual things, from construction debris and signage to abandoned clothing and remnants of fast food packaging. Most of what we find is plastic – bottle caps, tops for cups, etc. Each of us picked up cigarette butts before finally giving up. That work was endless and disheartening. Alex kept count and reached 1,000.

Among our most unusual finds: A rusted out button for the “29th ANNUAL WOODTICK RACES.” We experienced a few of our own: Alex ended up pulling off 30 ticks, Kadee, 5, Alicia 4, Mary & Mike, 0.

- Mary Lilja

Richard Murphy makes a business case for “greening your grounds"

On this, the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day, the main argument for “going green” is often because it is simply the right thing to do. While acting on a moral imperative is easy enough for the individual, businesses typically look at the bottom line before making an investment in going green.

Richard Murphy, president and CEO of Murphy Warehouse Company – a Lilja client – makes the case that going green can save businesses money, and the best way to do so is to make changes not just inside your facility, but outside.

In a column titled “The business case for greening your grounds” published today on MinnPost.com, Richard describes the green investment his company has made installing a stormwater system and native prairies at their Minneapolis headquarters. How much has Murphy saved, you ask? $500,000 in costs so far – with their largest cost savings still to come!

If you are interested in learning more about what Murphy has done to “go green,” visit the company’s YouTube Channel.

Happy Earth Day!

-- Alex Cook

GameInformer.com Nominated for Best Games-Related Site in the 14th Annual Webby Awards

With all the talk about the intersection of the traditional news media and the Internet on Lilja Ink recently, exciting news came out this week that long-term Lilja Inc. client, Game Informer magazine, is among the nominees in this year’s 14^th Annual Webby Awards.

GameInformer.com has been nominated for Best Games-Related Site.

The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet – think the Oscars of the Internet.

Apart from my own professional interest in this news, I am a big fan of Game Informer and the website, which offers a well-designed, intuitive online experience. But more important, I enjoy the fact that the website welcomes gamers, like myself, to join the action and review/discuss gaming alongside the magazine editors.

As a nominee, GameInformer.com also is eligible to win a Webby People’s Voice Award, which is voted online by the global Web community. You can help by voting for Game Informer here.

Congratulations, Game Informer!

-- Alex Cook

Chasing Tails: The Most Ironic Blog Entry Ever

How many times have you heard: Social media is EXPLODING and it’s only a matter of time before it takes over traditional media.

Well yes, social media has grown rapidly as people discover new tools for sharing information and keeping in touch. As newsrooms everywhere shrink, right along with their readership, people are turning to these new tools as a news source.

But consider these stats recently released by Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism:
• American legacy outlets like newspapers and broadcast accounted for 80% of all items linked to stories on blogs.
• Three outlets alone provided two-thirds of bloggers’ linked news articles: The New York Times, CNN and BBC.
• The favorite subject matter for Tweets on Twitter? Twitter itself, which accounted for 10% of all top stories. Apple products garnered 8% of top stories, Facebook received 7%, and Windows 7 got 5%.

Interestingly, the study also noted that many blogs were rooted in providing opinions, not facts, a la talk-radio.

My point (and I do have one): Social media is great. It lets everyone have a voice and democratizes our national conversation on all matter of topics. But by in large, bloggers are not doing the investigative work and fact checking of reporters at traditional media.

If you’d like an example of this in practice, please hit your refresh button and blink.

-- Alicia DeMatteo

Patrick Dougherty reads from his new memoir, A Whole-Hearted Embrace

I recently attended a very well attended book launch event for A Whole-Hearted Embrace, written by noted St. Paul psychologist and Spring Forest Qigong teacher Patrick Dougherty.

Patrick told us how he combined the two major stories of his life – the first of death and trauma, the second of healing and love – into his book. One night he says the two stories came together in his mind, and his new spiritual memoir is the result.

Lilja was involved early on. We introduced Patrick to Editor Gordon Thomas, who worked with Patrick on his early manuscript. More recently we have helped promote the finished book, including arranging the launch event at Magers & Quinn in Minneapolis.

A Whole-Hearted Embrace is a dramatic account of Patrick’s journey to health and healing after witnessing death at an early age, including his tour of duty as a Marine in Vietnam. He experiences a variety of spiritual traditions, as well as the practice of Qigong.

Patrick reminds us that simply opening our hearts is a major step. Doing so does not just transform trauma and grief, but also brings love and joy. Reading his book reminds me that the journey we make from our heads to our hearts is the longest, most arduous journey we'll ever make -- but also one of the most rewarding.

Spring Forest Qigong, an organization that develops and provides educational tools to help people heal and improve the quality of their lives through Qigong, an ancient Chinese practice using breath and movement, published the book.

-Mary Lilja

Author Robert Glennon Speaks at U of M

On Feb. 22, Robert Glennon (pictured above with Deborah Swackhamer), author of Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It, addressed the “urgent water crisis" in our country in a free public lecture at the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul Student Center Theater.

The lecture was sponsored by local nonprofit, and Lilja client, Freshwater Society, celebrating 2010 – The Year of Water, a yearlong series of activities organized by the Freshwater Society to increase public awareness about water issues.

Among the media outlets that covered the event, the U of M student newspaper Minnesota Daily wrote an excellent piece that gives us at Lilja hope for the future of journalism.

With the news media in a state of disarray and budget cuts stretching today’s reporters (who, make no mistake, are excellent in their profession) thin, it seems that journalism would be an unattractive job for the future. But we are happy to see that is not the case, with young capable journalists-to-be ensuring the survival of the free press into the future.

-- Alex Cook

When Bad Publicity is Actually Good

PR professionals have debated if there really is “no such thing as bad publicity” since time began (or at least, since the profession began).

In the spirit of a healthy point/counterpoint to my colleague Alex, I am going to assert that bad publicity can be good – it all depends on how the situation is handled.

There really, truly are situations where bad publicity can help achieve the goals of an organization or person. While we instinctively think a bad situation would draw negative visibility, a bad situation handled properly and with good, solid communications, can actually increase positive thoughts about that person, product or organization.

One may point to Toyota and their handling of faulty brakes as an example of bad publicity being bad. While this isn’t the first time a company has dealt with a product safety issue, others have pulled it off gracefully and with their reputation intact. In contrast, Tylenol’s handling of cyanide-laced caplets in the early 1980’s is the classic example of good crisis management.

Amazing: something dubbed the “Tylenol Murders” by media actually helped Tylenol reinforce its dedication to product safety.

Every issue has two sides. It is the responsibility of the organization in question to react and present their side of the story in a swift and responsible manner. The question is not will communication take place – the question is how you will manage it.

-- Alicia DeMatteo